Share

PIPE

Development of the USDA Pest Information Platform for Extension & Education (PIPE)

The application of advanced Information Technologies (IT) to the soybean rust
threat has enabled the deployment of a pest information system with a level of
utility and credibility never previously achieved for an invasive agricultural
pest in the U.S. As a result of this success, government administrators,
researchers, industry representatives, and producers are employing the same
template to launch a national Pest Information Platform for Education and
Extension (PIPE). The PIPE concept was originally proposed by Scott Isard and
Joe Russo at a meeting of USDA administrators in Bellefonte, PA. It has since
been adopted as a new paradigm for IPM. The IPM PIPE is currently directed by a
national steering committee and continues to expand. In 2006, PIPE began to
focus on established pests of soybean and other legumes under the direction of
the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) Regional Integrated Pest Management
(IPM) Centers. A diverse array of pest information systems in the U.S. provide
growers with valuable information for managing plant diseases, insect pests, and
weeds at local, regional, and national scales. The vision for PIPE is to enhance
the use of these decision support systems, facilitate development of additional
IPM programs, help growers document their management actions for crop insurance
claims, and provide a structure that will enable quick response to threats from
exotic pests (Isard et al 2006).

PIPE integrates people and computers, distributed throughout the
nation, who are networked and facilitated by “state-of-the-art” IT. It supports
observation networks, diagnostic laboratories, data management, modeling,
interpretation, and the dissemination of timely information on a well-integrated
platform to help farmers combat plant diseases, insect pests, and weeds. An
important philosophical underpinning of PIPE is that education and extension
activities for both integrated pest management and risk management associated
with crop insurance should proceed hand-in-hand. PIPE is built on the existing
USDA, university, and state Departments of Agriculture infrastructures and
benefits from an informal partnership with industry.